Spirits of the Hunt

After being assaulted by the ceremony and meeting Seer of the End I continued to have it intrude on my thoughts. They were telling me that I had missed something. An almost shapeless and formless vision of a deer spirit entering the circle and some ritualistic hunt was missing from the story. Furthermore, they had things to say, a few names were incorrect, and I realised that they would have at least two different words for blood: the blood of life and death would be different than that which could be brought out by violence from an arm. Human blood of such type would be different to that which was carried by animals and sometimes drunk. So maybe even three words.

Right now, I only have the two. One based on proto-Indo-European, as discussed last time, and the other on Old English. I have chosen to render this not as Blot or Blod but as blwd - because I do like the Celtic 'w' sound.

Anyway, that's what seized me today. Analysis as always provided by 750words.com because I like the idea that one can learn more things through statistics.

Rating: PG-13 (violence and sexual-content) - I mean, I guess so.

Feeling mostly upset, and concerned mostly about death - okay, actually, maybe it is.

Mindset: Extrovert - Negative - Certain - Feeling

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Sight (ack); Us and Them: Us

32 minutes at 40 words per minute

Into the heat and the flame, to the hissing of the rain on the embers, from the darkness of the surrounding woodland came an apparition. Man-sized and with arms and legs, topped by antlers and draped by the skin of a deer. No eyes could be seen amidst the charcoal and mud on the body. Drum beats intensified, Seer felt the world throbbing in accompaniment, saw the pulse of the sound as it filled the air and became the animal. Around her the Behannu began to move, Feast of Pain at the drums did not move, eyes staring forward at a fixed point and seeing who knew what of the scene. No annui were left with the vo'sha but the beast was here and the hunt had begun. Droning horns from out of sight, deep in the recesses of the trees, removed sense of self and separation so that everything became one and the spirits moved in the rain.

Before they had been naked, bereft of anything from the world, but now the Behannu were clothed in hunting garb, carrying spears and other weapons of the trade. The stag-man was transformed into something else, impossibly large with elbows jutting out like vestiges of something missing, hands moulded to the base of the antlers to hold them steady as defensive weapons. Breating impossibly loud in their ears, wood impossibly strong in the hands, heat impossibly hot on their skin, bhel impossibly powerful on their hair, aroma wet and dark and heavy.

Behannu moved with skill and silence, stalking her prey through the clearing, but the prey was not a mute beast nor without wit and intelligence, the stag knew she came and meant to seek conflict. This was not the running and hiding gait of a surprised animal for meat but the steady dancing circle of an opponent seeking to inflict pain and wearisome wounds on a knowing adversary. A dance of blow and counter-blow, a meeting of equals. Deer spirit risen on hind legs, bearing his chest and neck, daring the Behannu to take it and fight on. A whirl of floating sparks and embers, a spitting of boiling sap, a smell of bhel and the hint of something more violent. Deer spirit lunged with antlers, missing the mark as Behannu writhed and laughed, guttural shrieking following - loud and clear through the sodden atmosphere - and the spears dashed forward, blwd brought out, red and clear, swift and flowing. In stark contrast the bhel was muddied and sticky, mucus and viscous, almost brown and black in places. A coming together of the two states: that which protects and heralds death whilst bringing forth life contrasted with that which erupts and is brought forth by violence or accident.

Deer spirit fell to the ground, rolling over and over in the mud, slick with it, ruined by it, blind and without ears, feet upward and legs curled. A keening scream of pitiable defeat, a spasmodic jerking, and then stillness. It was over, the hunt was finished, and the skin drum returned to break through the wall of the drone. Behannu laughed, and danced in her victory, a tangle of arms, legs and naked bodies around the fire and safe from the darkness beyond. Sharing warmth, sharing experience, sharing pain and care, chewing roots or eating the raw meat stripped from a carcass. Furrows in the earth, the antlers were gone, a stag lay where deer spirit had fallen. Eyes watched, reality shimmered and Seer was back once more, a single spirit, a single pair of eyes, a single pair of ears, her own stomach and insides, her own skin wet with the rain.

Behannu was gone, the behannu remained, and Seer knew that she was now one of them, that they were part of her, that the ritual was what bound them all, that the circle of life was complete.

Hound spirits, the Brown Ones, Wolf spirits and others watched closely from the edge of the light, beyond them were the Foxes and the Gazelle, drawn and repulsed in equal measure by the light and the smell of the bhel. Owl and buzzard spirits perched on nearby branches, drawn by the smell and sight of blwd but held at bay by the bhel and its power. Further beyond, deeper in the dark, were the Terrible Birds and their spirits, the Shape-Changers and the darker things that lay in wait for those that did not learn what the should in time and were not protected by their families. Above smiled the spirits of the place and the journey, the shifting muses of the trees and the rocks and the pools and the lakes and the mountains and the clouds and the sky.

Overwhelmed, Seer exulted, turning her face to accept the rain, to wash from it the crusted bhel and slime of the mud and mucus. Driving away the trappings of before the Red and allowing her true self, the future, to take their place. Freedom, pain, resolution, resignation, power, death and food. The behannu bhel was the life-giver of the tribe, the tribe maintained and continued unbroken by their shared understanding of the bhel magick.

"Tomorrow," whispered a voice by her ears, "Tomorrow we journey, two more times shall we meet, on the moon's face, before we finish that which we begin. Take heart behan, and this dream will fade but become woven with your basket - to help hold all you carry rather than be carried."

"Warp and weft," stated another voice, further away, "we are the warp and weft of the family and tribe and house, together we are stronger than single strips, woven we are unbreakable."

"In our pain we recognise behan, through our pain the tribe is protected, by our pain we herald death inside." This was Death Blood, "Death protects life, life brings death, blood is life."

Another voice simply whimpered in pain, a murmuring and shushing followed from all around, so that Seer herself joined in - the sound of annui comforting the vo'sha, the collective sharing of emotion - and the whimper became tears. Shared tears, so all cried, all laughed, all embraced.

Slowly, and with melancholy, the spirits withdrew from the scene, the rain continued and the fire died down. Members drifted away, leaving those that chose to stay. And Seer remembered being vo'sha, the leaving of amu and the return of amu, the way she was tired but happy, the smell of joy and the weariness of the limbs. But now she, too, felt the same and understood.

"Seer of the End," an arm across her back, it was Death Blood once more, smiling and concerned. "When we journey I ask you walk with me, for I have much to learn from you and you have much to teach. You must rest, you must eat, you must recover. Shall I take you back? Will your amu carry you? Do you prefer to go alone?"

Without knowing how or why, Seer knew the words to say: "I am behan: I have no amu but the tribe and our Behannu. I am woven: so that none carry and none are borne. We are Behannu Bhel: none are alone and all are behan. It shall be as you say when we journey. And now I must sleep."

"My warmth to you, behan, let it be also as you say."